


Watch and Learn

by Bones (thepiesandthebees)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Brain Damage, Brainwashing, F/M, Hydra (Marvel), I love me some sassy Bucky, M/M, Past Brainwashing, Past Torture, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, Torture, charming bucky, grumpy bucky, mostly canonical, sassy Bucky
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-26 15:41:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6245800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepiesandthebees/pseuds/Bones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shortly after remembering himself and some of his past, Bucky surrenders to the Avengers, but the secrets about Hydra that are locked in his mind are wrapped in wires and brain tissue. And no matter how much Steve wants to protect his friend, if Bucky can't deliver on his promise of Hydra intel, SHIELD will pull the plug.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written because I really need more Stucky, and I miss charming Bucky. I mean, angsty, broken Bucky is fine and all, but I really miss the charming Bucky from the first Captain America. 
> 
> Thank flufflybunnypants for playing angsty music while I wrote this. She's liable for all damages done.

They came slowly at first. Each one played before his mind’s eye like the clip of an old movie.

_Muddy trenches._

_Explosions that always preceded screams._

_The rain is cold. It’s always cold here._

The door opened. He looked up as a woman in a black suit walked in, her footsteps unnervingly silent despite the black heels on her feet. She could have sat in the empty chair across from him, but she remained standing.

The room they’d put him in was mostly metal. Even the floor was reinforced steel, so they could keep him shackled to it. His prosthetic arm had been disabled, leaving him unable to break his steel binds. Not that he wanted to.

“Do you know who I am?” the woman asked.

He stared at her, analyzing the sharp features of her face and fiery red hair. “Yeah, you’re the woman who broke my face. Natasha Romanoff. Or would you prefer I call you Black Widow?”

Her face didn’t change expression. It was fixed into a state of unreadability. “Do you know who you are?”

“Oh, yeah. I’m Eddie Condon.”

She just stared at him wordlessly.

“Oh, come on. Now, I just feel old.”

She sat in the chair then. “Do you know Steve Rogers?”

His heart stuttered. The scenes played again.

_Your mom’s name was Sarah; you used to wear newspaper in your shoes._

He shuddered and held his face in his working hand. The chains around his wrists clinked with the movement. “What do you want?”

Natasha leaned forward, clasping her hands together as her elbows rested on her thighs. “Tell me, Barnes. Why did you surrender?”

He lowered his hand and met her eyes. “That’s not for you to hear.”

Her brows furrowed. “Then who is meant to hear it?”

“Me.”

_Ice. Hands. Needles. Chair._

_No. Stop. Please. No._

Why can’t he scream?

Heart rate: 123. Blood pressure: 130/90. Core temperature: 37.2. He took a shaky breath, staring at the metal floor to remind himself of where he was.

Natasha tilted her head slightly, those calculating eyes seeing straight through him. “You don’t remember everything, do you?”

“I remember enough.” Too much.

_Please stop. Please._

_No, no, no, no, no…_

_Just end it._

“Why should we trust you?” Natasha asked.

“You shouldn’t. I’m a traitor.” He flexed his hand, the knuckles tingling with memories he’d rather forget.

She leaned back in her chair. “Лгун.”

He arched a brow. “Мы боролись.”

The smallest of smiles touched her lips. “да. И?”

He blinked, confused by her seeming magnanimity. “И...я убивал людей.”

“Мой пе убийцы. Мои лучьше. Я тебя прощаю.”

Pain shot through his head like a soldering iron though his eye. He curled into himself, clutching his head.

System error.

Parameters overridden.

Program dysfunctional.

Data corrupted.

System error. System error. System error. Sys—

“Stop!” The pain increased until he was shaking with it.

—rror. System error. System error.

Reboot.

#

Bucky didn’t know how he knew SHIELD’s number, but his fingers had pushed the buttons on a disposable phone. His mouth had given them the coordinates of the park in Brooklyn he found himself in. His hands had shook when he’d hung up. And then he’d waited, watching the birds fly through the trees.

The first SHIELD agent approached loudly. Bucky had plenty of time to make an escape after hearing the first crunch of leaves, but he stayed sitting on that bench and pretended the sound was the wind through the trees. More agents came until he was surrounded. The leader was a dark-haired woman with eyes holding the power of a storm. Name: Maria Hill.

“You called?” she said with one brow raised.

A bird landed on Bucky’s metal shoulder. He smiled at it, despite being surrounded by a squad of highly trained soldiers who all had guns pointed at him. “I surrender,” he said, watching the bird bob its head curiously.

“You...surrender?” Hill said, eyes narrowed warily.

Bucky looked up at her. “Yes.”

She folded her arms over her chest. “And what are the terms of this surrender?”

He shrugged. Guns cocked. The bird chirruped. “I surrender.”

“And why shouldn’t we kill you now?”

The bird flew off. “Because everything you want to know about Hydra technology—” he tapped his temple— “is in here.”

Her brows climbed up her forehead. She motioned her hand down. The soldiers lowered their guns. A smile touched her lips. “On behalf of Director Fury, I accept your surrender.”

#

The phone fell out of Steve’s hand and cracked on his apartment floor. Natasha’s voice still came through the receiver. “Steve? Steve!”

Sam peeled his eyes away from the baseball game on TV to look up at Steve. “What’s wrong?”

Steve couldn’t quite make his mouth work. Warmth flowed down his cheeks. He touched one and stared at his hand, surprised to find his fingertips wet.

Sam was off the couch in an instant and holding Steve’s shoulders, worry etched into his expression. “Steve? What happened?”

It took another moment, but Steve managed to rasp, “Bucky surrendered.”

Sam’s brows knit together. “What?”

Steve let out a shaky breath. “He surrendered. SHIELD is moving him to the Tower, so Bruce and Tony can see what Hydra did to him. But…”

“But what?”

Steve swallowed past a lump in his throat. “He had a seizure while Natasha was talking with him, so they did an MRI scan.” His voice broke on the last word. He clasped a hand over his mouth.

Sam directed Steve to the couch.

“They messed with his brain more than we thought, Sam.” Steve wiped at his eyes.

Sam sat on the couch beside him. “Hydra, you mean?”

Steve nodded. “The MRI showed...things...in his head, and if Tony and Bruce don’t find a way to fix it, he…” He trailed off, unable to even say the words. “I thought I lost him once. I can’t go through that again.”

Sam wrapped an arm around Steve’s shoulders. “Tony and Bruce will find a way. If anyone can figure this out, it’s them.”

Steve bowed his head. “But what if they can’t?” When Sam opened his mouth, Steve quickly added, “I don’t mean taking out whatever Hydra put inside his brain. I mean, what if what Hydra did to him can’t be fixed? What if they did too much damage?”

“You don’t know that.” Sam squeezed Steve’s shoulder. “It’s not over yet.”

Steve’s lips thinned to a line. He was silent a long moment, and when he did speak, his voice was barely above a whisper. “The things they did to him. All this time, and he had to suffer through torture after torture.” He shook his head. “And I wasn’t there for him.”

“Steve, you can’t blame yourself for this,” Sam admonished gently. “You had no idea he was even alive until a couple months ago.” When Steve didn’t reply, Sam sighed and said, “Look, we don’t know what’s going on with him—not really. And maybe you weren’t there for him before, but you can be now.”

Steve let out a tired breath and glanced at the phone still lying on the floor. He picked it up and held it to his ear. “You still there, Nat?”

“Of course,” she said. “You okay, Steve? I shouldn’t have overwhelmed you like that.”

“No, I needed to know.” He ran a hand over his face. “When does he arrive at the Tower?”

“Ten minutes, but Bruce has insisted you don’t see him until he’s sure everything is stable. I agree. Whatever is going on in his brain, he needs fewer triggers, not more.”

Steve wouldn’t argue, despite how much he wanted to see Bucky. Bruce and Natasha were more knowledgeable about these things, and he wanted to help, not harm. “What’s Tony think about this? He’s not going to hurt Bucky, is he?”

“He’s not happy about it, but after looking at the scans, his opinion of Bucky has...shifted. Hard to be righteous about an assassin who had no choice in anything, even if that assassin killed Tony’s parents.”

Steve shoved a hand through his hair. “And what do you think about him, Nat? I haven’t heard your opinion yet.”

“Well, he definitely has a mouth on him. He wouldn’t stop being a wise ass.”

Steve chuckled at that.

She was quiet for a moment. “To be honest with you Steve, he and I went through similar circumstances. They didn’t mess with my head in the same way they did him, but it’s...close. Whatever he’s done, it wasn’t his fault. He had no control. I won’t begrudge him for that.”

Relief flowed through Steve. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

“That doesn’t mean the rest of the team or SHIELD will agree with us.” A voice said something indistinct through the receiver. “I have to go now, but head to the Tower. He’ll be settled by the time you get there.”

“Okay. And Nat?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you for taking care of him.”

“Don’t thank me just yet.” She hung up.

Sam was staring at Steve. “So what are we doing?”

Steve pocketed his phone. “We’re going to Avengers Tower.”

#

Steve sits on a lumpy roof. A soft wind blows through his blond hair. He smiles when Bucky approaches.

“Shouldn’t you be in bed?” Bucky says as he sits next to his friend, legs dangling over the gutter.

“There’s a full moon, Buck. Sleep can wait.”

And there is a full moon. It’s big and golden and beautiful, hanging in the summer sky. But Bucky doesn’t care because Steve looks up at it with a smile that’s brighter than the sun.

Steve rests his head on Bucky’s shoulder. He’s warm. “When are you being deployed?”

“Friday.”

Steve closes his eyes. Bucky acts on an impulse to run his hand through his friend’s blond hair.

“It’s only a few months,” Bucky hears himself say. It’s not what he wants to say. He wants Steve to know just how much he means, but the words catch in his throat.

Steve scoffs. “‘ _Only_ a few months.’ Only twelve weeks where you’re in the line of fire.”

Bucky’s hand stills in his friend’s hair. “Don’t make me leave like this.”

Steve looks up at Bucky with eyes bluer than the summer sky. “Come back all right.”

A sad smile touches Bucky’s lips. “Always.”

#

“—try to remove it, he could die. Or worse.”

“And?”

“And Steve will rip you a new one. What about deactivating it?”

“That could interrupt normal brain function. Look, it’s all wrapped around his medulla.”

Bucky opened his eyes, only to shut them again at the bright, fluorescent light. Slowly, he tried again, giving himself time to adjust. The room was white. White walls. White ceiling. White floor.

He looked down at his arms. They were both handcuffed to a bed frame, but the flesh one had a needle in it. Clear liquid flowed from the tube attached to it, sliding into his forearm.

He jumped, immediately alert, and tore the needle out by using his teeth to pull on the tubing. Blood dripped onto the bed’s white sheets and the floor.

“Son of a bitch!”

A man in civilian clothes ran toward him. Bucky shrunk away from him, glaring until he stopped in his tracks.

“You don’t want the IV? Fine,” the man said and lifted up his hands, “but at least let me patch up your arm.”

Bucky stared at the man a long moment, calculating the risk. Dark skin. Shaved head. Name: Sam Wilson. Codename: Falcon. Disarming stance. Clean hands. Body language indicative of genuine concern.

Bucky relaxed slightly and nodded. Sam lowered his hands, went over to a row of drawers, and pulled out various medical supplies.

Voices still lingered in the background, speaking more softly than they had before. Bucky looked past Sam to two others across the room. They were looking at what appeared to be MRI snapshots of a head. With a start, Bucky realized it was his head.

Wires ran around the brain tissue and consolidated in three places. One near the lower back part of his brain. One at the top front. And one in the middle. He stared at the pictures, nausea churning in his gut.

“Don’t worry yourself about that,” Sam said as he pulled up a chair beside Bucky’s bed. “They want to talk with you about it, but they’ll figure it out regardless. They always do.” He wiped Bucky’s wound with an antiseptic pad.

“Gee, thanks, doc,” Bucky muttered. “I just love being the subject of brain experiments.”

Sam frowned. “No one’s going to experiment on you.”

“Then you must be into some kinky shit.” Bucky wiggled his wrist, making the handcuff chain clink and Sam scowl. “Don’t I get dinner first?”

“Just stop moving for a damn second.”

“That’s not usually the instructions I get in bed, but I can go with it.”

Sam groaned and wiped at Bucky’s wound more firmly.

Bucky squinted at the figures across the room. The space was longer than it was wide, and the only lighting on their end was from the MRI scans displayed on screens. But based on their body shapes, gestures, and vocal cadence. One was Dr. Bruce Banner, codename: Hulk, and Tony Stark, codename: Iron Man. Bucky tensed.

Sam wrapped his arm in bandages and gauze. “Do you know where you are?”

Bucky wasn’t sure he wanted to know where he was when his company appeared to consist entirely of Avengers. This room seemed constraining enough without being surrounded by lethal soldiers. But instead of actually confronting that reality, he asked, “Is this your dungeon?”

Sam’s lips thinned to a line. “You know, Nat told me you were a smart ass. I don’t know why I expected anything else.”

Bucky wiggled his hips. “Well, I’d show you how smart my ass could be, but I’m still chained to a bed.”

Sam rolled his eyes, and said, “This is Avengers Tower.”

Bucky’s heartbeat picked up to 138, fear coursing through him. The room was suddenly too small, and his lungs couldn’t get enough air. The monitor beside him beeped rapidly. Bruce and Tony turned to look at him. “Sam, what’s going on?” Bruce asked.

“Hey, look at me,” Sam said gently.

Bucky obeyed reluctantly.

“No one here is going to hurt you. Steve would have our heads.”

_Don’t make me leave like this._

Bucky’s jaw clenched. “Why am I here?”

Sam nodded toward the Avengers at the other end of the room. “Tony and Bruce over there—they’re working right now to fix what Hydra did to you.”

Bucky narrowed his eyes. “Because they want to know about Hydra tech.”

Sam’s brows rose. “You say that like you don’t want to tell us what you know.”

“Oh, I’ll tell you all about Hydra, but I don’t want anyone poking around in my head.” Bucky squeezed his eyes shut as icy pain shot down his neck.

_Hold him still!_

_There’s a good boy._

_Bite on this._

He shuddered and opened his eyes. “Блять.”

Tony scoffed. “Well, you heard him. Let’s just forget this whole thing and—”

“Tony,” Bruce interrupted firmly. “Don’t tick me off. He could be the key to figuring out Hydra’s tech, and you know it.”

Tony waved a hand dismissively. “Yeah, yeah. Sure.”

Bucky stared at the MRI scans with a growing sense of dread. Tony and Bruce glanced back at the scans. “We were hoping you could tell us what they did here,” Bruce said. “Do you remember?”

Bucky nodded. “Kind of. It’s...fuzzy, but I know the basics.”

“Sam, could you bring him closer?” Bruce asked, then glanced at Bucky. “If he’s comfortable with that.”

When Bucky nodded, Sam pushed the bed closer to the scans. Tony’s lips were pursed in distaste, but he didn’t offer any protest.

“What do you know?” Bruce asked.

Bucky squinted at the scans. “That one,” he said, nodding toward the scan of the front portion of his brain.

Tony pointed to a different scan. “This one?”

“No, two down and one left.”

Tony pointed to another scan.

“You do know which direction left is, don’t you?”

Tony grimaced. “You didn’t say if it was my left or your left.”

Bucky’s brows lowered, a crease forming between them. “We’re facing the same direction.”

“We weren’t before.”

“Why would I mean your left while you’re facing me, if I’m looking at the scans?”

With barely any pause between words, Tony grumbled, “Well, sorry, I didn’t think of that. Clearly, I haven’t had enough coffee. JARVIS, get me more coffee.”

An English, electronic voice said, “Right away, sir.”

Sam stared at Tony with an unimpressed look. “You’ve had six cups of coffee. How much more coffee do you need?”

“IV drip, Sam. Don’t even need blood when you have coffee.”

Bruce shook his head with a sigh. “Tony, just pick the right scan.”

“No, I’m picking the left scan, remember?” Tony tapped on the picture. It enlarged across all the screens.

“There’s three control centers,” Bucky explained. “This one regulates the other two. It was made to program my actions and shorten reaction time by speeding up my thought processing. It also includes social programming, so I wouldn’t...disobey.”

Bruce folded his arms over his chest, staring at the scan. “Makes sense. It’s attached to the frontal lobe.”

Tony seemed unnerved, taking a step back from the picture and grimacing. “This shouldn’t be possible.”

“It can be if it’s connected to the other parts of the brain,” Bruce said, “which is probably what the wires are for.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t possible. I said it shouldn’t be.” Tony turned to Bucky. “Do you know what would happen if we deactivated this main control center?”

Bucky shrugged. “It could shut off everything, or it could melt my brain. Or both. Wouldn’t that be exciting?”

Bruce sighed and tapped the screen again. It returned to the assortment of scans. Bucky looked through them, then nodded to another. Tony tapped on it.

The picture was of the back part of Bucky’s brain where wires were concentrated around a circular device. “That monitors my health and lets me know things like injury characteristics, energy levels, heart rate, blood pressure, and body temperature.”

“You mean you know the exact numbers?” Sam asked incredulously.

Bucky nodded. “Heart rate: 95. Blood pressure: 124/82. Core temperature: 36.8. This control center will also send a pulse out that will kill me instantly if any of the other centers are removed.”

“Awesome,” Tony muttered and tapped the screen.

When Bucky picked the last one of the middle section of his brain, a chill ran through him.

_It’s not working. He still won’t obey._

_Cut deeper._

_We’ll kill him if we go any further._

_Not with the serum. Cut deeper._

“That control center is...memory. It… I think it controls memory.”

“You’re not sure?” Bruce asked.

“Tell you what? Let’s put the wires in your brain and see what you remember after.”

_But I knew him._

_Prep him._

_He’s been out of cryo freeze too long._

_Then wipe him and start over._

The monitor across the room beeped. Heart rate: 146. Bucky squeezed his eyes shut.

A chair. Men with guns. Pain unlike any other.

“Hey.”

Sam’s gentle voice broke through the scene. Bucky opened his eyes. Everyone stared at him with concern. Even Tony had lines of worry around his mouth.

“The memories...come in flashes,” Bucky said and took a deep breath. “The control center blocks access to long-term memory. It also will wipe memories when… I don’t know. There was this chair that—” His throat tightened too much for him to complete the sentence. A shudder ran through his body. Cold sweat broke out over his skin. “This was a bad idea.”

“No, this is good,” Bruce said, then promptly looked apologetic. “Well, not _good_. But this control center connects to the temporal lobes, concentrating around the hippocampus. All memories have to be processed in those regions. The frontal lobe is where most of the emotional processing goes. If that lobes’ control center is in charge of the other two, then any time your emotions overwhelm it, the other two are affected. If we can find a way to use emotional activity to bypass the programming, then we don’t have to deactivate anything.” Bruce looked at Bucky hopefully. “Is that why you surrendered? Something sparked your emotions and you remembered yourself?”

_Then finish it. ‘Cause I’m with you till the end of the line._

“Steve,” Bucky mumbled. “He—”

Something knocked the air out of him. Nothing had physically struck him, but it sure as hell felt that way. He gasped in a breath, gripping the bed frame. The monitor beeped. Heart rate: 210. Blood pressure: 140/93. Core temperature: 37.5.

Fire shot down Bucky’s spine, burning everything in its wake.

“He’s seizing again.” Bruce’s voice was far away.

“Uncuff him, so I can turn him on his side.”

“We have to find a way to fix this fast.”

System reset.

Manual override.

Reprogram.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Russian Translations
> 
> She leaned back in her chair. “Liar.”  
> He arched a brow. “We fought.”  
> The smallest of smiles touched her lips. “Yes. And?”  
> He blinked, confused by her seeming magnanimity. “And...I killed people.”  
> “We are not killers. We are better. I forgive you.”


	2. Chapter 2

The waiting was the worst part. Steve grew more and more anxious as he stood in one of Tony’s labs, a giant screen of MRI scans in front of him. He listened to Tony and Banner explain what went wrong with Bucky. He didn’t really understand anything they were saying—not uncommon—and in the back of his mind, he kept going through worst case scenarios. What if Bucky died? What if only his brain died? What if his brain was damaged irreparably? What if he became a vegetable?

“Steve, are you even trying?” Tony asked, the lines around his mouth deepening in displeasure.

Steve rubbed his forearm nervously. “Yeah, I’m trying, Tony, but science isn’t my thing. Just tell me what I can do.”

Bruce pointed to a black cluster at the front of Bucky’s brain. “This is what controls everything. We can’t take it out safely, and if we shut it off, he’ll die.”

“What we can do,” Tony said, “is repurpose it.”

Steve stared at the black cluster. “How am I supposed to help with that?”

Tony gestured to the whole front area of the brain. “This is all responsible for reasoning and processing emotions. Here’s the thing. It was designed to control actions, not feelings. Now, your boyfriend has done something kind of remarkable. He’s essentially slipped past the programming by over-stimulating the other sections of the brain through the wires using emotional activation.”

“In other words,” Bruce said, “he’s using Hydra’s own tech to undo itself. If we can find a way to use his emotions to control it, we don’t have to risk removing anything. Right now, we’re working on stabilizing the tech because the emotional triggers are too sudden and intense for it to handle.”

Steve wasn’t sure he understood half of what they said, but at this point, he only cared that Bucky get through this. “Again, how can I help?”

“Getting there,” Tony said and tapped on the screen. A new picture appeared. Spots on the front, middle, and back parts of Bucky’s brain were colored in yellow. “These are the sections of his brain that are most active when he’s unconscious. Based on the locations, we can determine that this is the residual effect of what he’s doing. The front portion processes the emotional reaction, and it rapidly travels to the middle, triggering a memory with similar emotional significance. The problem is that the back part gets an electrical burst as well, and overstimulates what’s called the medulla oblongata. That’s why he’s getting the seizures. Too much stimulation in that area. If it continues or if it strikes too hard, his heart and lungs will stop working.”

Steve’s stomach churned at that idea. 

Bruce waved his hand over the screen, and the picture disappeared. “That’s where you come in. You were the one who triggered the first emotional response that overwhelmed the tech. We want to do another scan with him, but this time, we want you to talk to him during it. Based on what parts of his brain are most active, we might be able to determine how best to handle this. The solution could be something as simple as medication to regulate the intensity of emotional responses, or we could dampen electrical flow through some of the wires. The problem with that is we don’t know what will set the sensors off. If any of the control centers stops working, or if they  _ think _ one isn’t working, they’ll kill him.”

Steve’s lips thinned to a line. This all sounded theoretical, and the very real possibility of Bucky dying haunted him. But it was better than nothing. “When do you want to do this scan?”

“As soon as he wakes up,” Tony said, “but that could be a while. This seizure hit him hard.”

“Can I see him now?”

Bruce nodded. “He’s in the third floor infirmary. JARVIS can give you directions.”

“Certainly, sir,” the computer system said through the lab speakers. 

Steve let out a breath, slightly relieved that at least he’d get to see Bucky. “Then if we’re done here, I’m going to see him.”

“Yeah, sure,” Tony said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Go creepily watch your boyfriend sleep.”

“Cram it, Tony.” Steve walked out of the lab with Tony doing a nasally impersonation of him. 

JARVIS guided Steve down to the infirmary. It was a series of empty rooms stocked with all sorts of medical supplies. Bucky’s room was at the very back, isolated from the others. Natasha stood outside it, arms folded as she leaned against the wall. 

“Tony and Bruce tell you what’s going on?” she asked.

He nodded. “I didn’t understand most of what they were talking about, but they said they wanted to do a test with me and Bucky.”

She stood away from the wall. “I have some bad news.”

His eyes narrowed. “What kind of bad news?”

“There’s a lot of SHIELD agents who have beef with Barnes. They’re vying to have him killed, regardless of what information he can provide.”

Steve scowled. “It wasn’t him. He couldn’t—

“Everyone here knows that, Steve. Even Tony. But there’s a lot of damage that’s been done. Fury and Hill are on our side in this, but we still need to be careful of rogues.”

“I assure you, Ms. Romanoff,” JARVIS said suddenly. “The Tower has impeccable security.”

She smiled slightly. “I know. Thanks, JARVIS. Can never be too careful, though.”

“Of course, Ms. Romanoff.”

She gripped Steve’s shoulder and squeezed. “Be careful, Steve. This isn’t a war you can fight with that shield of yours. This is politics.”

He gave a half-hearted smile. “I’ll be careful.”

She gave his shoulder one last squeeze and walked away. He stared at the door to Bucky’s room a long moment. It’d been weeks since he’d last seen his friend, since they’d had a chance to talk. His stomach fluttered inexplicably as he opened the door.

Bucky lay in a bed on one side of the room. His MRI scans filled a screen on the other. Steve felt queasy just looking at them. He hesitantly made his way to a chair by Bucky’s bed and sat down. 

His best friend looked different than he had seventy years ago. Bucky’s hair had grown out. Fatigue had etched lines beside his mouth and eyes. But it was still him. 

“Hey, Buck,” Steve mumbled. “I hope Bruce and Tony have been treating you all right. Sam says you got a smart mouth, but you always had a smart mouth.” He swept Bucky’s hair back from his forehead. “I’m sorry all this happened. I should have been more careful on that train. I should have…” He trailed off and took Bucky’s hand. “Come back all right.”

#

Bucky stares at his missing arm as they drag him across the ice. It’s cold. Of course, it’s cold. He’d said hell would freeze over before Steve could enlist in the army.

They toss him in the back of a truck. His blood isn’t even warm. It drips steadily from where his arm used to be, freezing almost immediately against his side. The car moves. He stares at the roof of it. Gray interior. It’s like the clouds outside.

Steve probably thinks he’s dead. The thought makes Bucky aware of the pain pulsing through him. He gasps in a breath and tries to sit upright. Have to get to Steve. His right hand slams against the back window. It cracks.

The truck stops. Angry voices precede the pain that strikes him in the head. He doesn’t know if he hits the floor.

_ Come back all right. _

#

White walls and white floors again. Bucky blinked, his mind slowly figuring out what had happened in the past twenty-fours hours. He’d surrendered. SHIELD had brought him to Avengers Tower. Tony Stark and Bruce Banner were trying to fix his brain.

Warmth registered at his side, and something moved against his hand. He tensed until he saw Steve hunched over the bed, head resting against Bucky’s shoulder. Steve’s hand was in his. “Idiot,” Bucky muttered. “This is no place to sleep.”

Steve’s breaths were even. His eyelids fluttered every so often, but he was sound asleep. Bucky ran his thumb over the back of Steve’s hand, but when he realized his hand was uncuffed, he slipped out from Steve’s grip and ran his hand through his friend’s hair.

_ Come back all right. _

“Always.”

Steve’s eyes opened, blinked a few times, and then turned up to meet Bucky’s.

“Good morning, sunshine,” Bucky said with a small smile. 

Steve mouth opened, but no sound came out. Instead, he jumped up and pulled Bucky into his arms. Bucky was immediately struck with a sense of being constrained. Like in the chair. His chest constricted and body tensed, but when he drew in a shaky breath, there was the scent of...

Home.

This wasn’t the chair. This was Steve. This was home.

Bucky wrapped a shaking arm around his friend. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

“You scared the shit out of me.” Steve turned his face into Bucky’s shoulder. “Why did you run?”

“And let you and Sam take the fall for what I’ve done?” Bucky shook his head. “You’ve done enough, Steve.”

Steve pulled away to look into Bucky’s eyes. “I would have done anything to protect you.”

“That’s exactly why I left.” Bucky grimaced. “Jesus, Steve, were you trying to start a war? I swear you just don’t know when to back down.”

“I can’t lose you again!” Steve bowed his head. “Damn it. Once was enough. I can’t… I won’t…”

Bucky sighed. “Steve, listen to me.”

Steve lifted his head. Those blue eyes met Bucky’s.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Bucky said firmly, “and no matter what happens in my brain, I’m still me.” He clasped Steve’s shoulder. “I’m with you till the end of the line.”

Steve didn’t respond immediately, searching Bucky’s eyes. When he opened his mouth to speak, the door opened.

“Sorry to interrupt your date,” Tony said, strolling in with Bruce at his heels, “but we need to get moving. Hill wants data now.”

Bucky glared at Tony. “You’re not digging into my head.”

“No one’s digging into anything,” Bruce said, glancing at Tony askance. “We want to do another scan, but with Steve talking to you during it.”

Bucky leaned back in bed. “Okay, but why?”

Bruce started talking about emotions and neuron stimulation, and Bucky probably should have been paying attention, but Steve’s hand was somehow in his again, and that monitor in his head kept flashing  **heart rate: 94** at him like he wasn’t already intensely aware of the thumb tracing circles into the back of his hand. 

“Are you even listening?” Tony asked with a scowl.

Bucky blinked. He’d been staring at Tony all this time, but he might as well have been looking at the wall for all the attention he’d spared the man. “Yeah, I’m totally listening.”

Tony sighed. “Whatever. Let’s just get you in the MRI.”

Steve pushed Bucky’s bed out of the room. Bruce worried his lip between his teeth while they went. 

“You’re not allowed to be nervous, doc,” Bucky said as Tony directed them toward a door off to the side. “I’m the only one who can be nervous.”

Bruce shoved a hand through his curls. “We were half-expecting you’d seize after seeing Steve again. That you didn’t is...concerning.”

Steve scowled. “You let me see him because you thought he’d have another seizure?” His voice had a dangerous edge to it.

Bucky squeezed Steve’s hand. “No kicking the doctor’s ass.” He narrowed his eyes at Bruce. “But also, what the fuck, Banner?”

Tony opened the door to a smaller room. “We hypothesized that the intensity of the emotion mattered more than the type of emotion. That may not be the case, considering you’re still conscious.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that now we have to figure out which emotions work for you and which don’t,” Bruce explained. “That’s far more complicated to manage than intensity. What you feel with Steve can stimulate memory retrieval without seizure—today, anyway.”

Bucky definitely wasn’t thinking about the warmth in his chest that accompanied Steve’s hand on his shoulder. “You still look nervous, doc.”

Bruce didn’t reply.

The room they’d entered had one MRI machine in the middle of it and another door that opened to a room behind a glass wall. At Tony’s instruction, Bruce uncuffed Bucky, and Steve helped his friend to his feet. Bucky glanced at his metal arm when it started to vibrate near the machine, drawn to it.

“How exactly have you been doing this without ripping off my arm?” Bucky asked. “Or any of the things in my head, for that matter?”

Tony walked into the room behind the glass and typed something into a computer sitting at a desk inside. The MRI whirred down, and the pull on Bucky’s arm lessened. “A CT scan wouldn’t give us the finer details of your brain tissue,” Tony said, voice coming through some kind of intercom system, “so I adapted our machine to have malleable magnetic fields and radio waves that will adjust to accompany any metal. So long as you don’t move around too much, your arm and brain won’t be ripped out.”

“Are you always this comforting?” Bucky muttered.

“Just get in the tube, cyborg.”

Bucky reluctantly walked toward the machine. His legs were unsteady, not quite working like he wanted. Steve helped him make his way over and carefully laid him onto the padded mat extending from the machine. Bruce adjusted Bucky’s position to be perfectly straight. “Try not to move at all,” he said. “If you move too much, you could shift something in your brain.”

“Peachy,” Bucky grumbled.

Steve took Bucky’s hand. “You can do this.”

“Just don’t let iron ass kill me.”

“I can hear you,” Tony said over the intercom.

Bucky looked at Tony. “Don’t kill me, iron ass.” 

Tony typed something into a monitor. “Yeah, yeah. Buzzkill.”

Bruce pushed at Steve’s shoulder. “C’mon. He’ll only be able to hear you over the intercom once he’s inside the MRI.”

Steve squeezed Bucky’s hand before leaving with Bruce. Bucky closed his eyes, knowing he wasn’t going to enjoy the experience of being in a confined space. The pad moved. Heart rate: 124.

The sound inside the MRI was like a bearing ball in a washing machine. “How you doing, Buck?” Steve asked, voice echoing against the MRI walls.

“Let’s just get this over with quickly,” Bucky said, voice strained.

“Steve’s going to ask you some questions,” Bruce said. “All you have to do is answer as best you can, and then say how you feel about it.”

Bucky hoped this list of questions was short. “Okay.”

“Question one.” Steve’s voice was comforting while the bearing ball seemed to grow louder. “When were you born?”

“March 10, 1917.”

“And how do you feel about that?” Bruce prompted.

“Old as fuck.”

Steve’s chuckle graced Bucky’s ears. “Question two: What’s your youngest sister’s name?”

_ You’re leaving? _

_ I have to. _

_ But...where will I go? _

“Rebecca,” Bucky mumbled, head throbbing. “She was sent off to boarding school.”

“And how does that make you feel?” asked Bruce.

Bucky took a deep breath. Heart rate: 131. “Angry. She needed her older brother, and I wasn’t there for her.”

There was a pause before Steve said, “Question three: How did we form the Howling Commandos?”

_ You ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death? _

_ Hell, no. That little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb to run away from a fight _ — _ I’m following him. _

“You asked me to fight with you against Hydra. Can’t believe you kept the suit.”

“And how do you—” Bruce started.

“Good,” Bucky interrupted. “Nostalgic. I miss my team.”

There was another pause. A knot formed in Bucky’s stomach at the absence of voices while that bearing ball seemed to bounce around in his head. 

“One last question,” Steve said.

Bucky released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Shoot.”

“What’s your greatest fear?”

_ Bucky? _

_ Who the hell is Bucky? _

I don’t want to forget.

“Bucky?” Steve’s voice had a note of worry in it. “Are you okay?”

Bucky’s head throbbed. “Let me out of here.”

“You need to answer the question first.”

Bucky’s eyes snapped open. He stared at a white, curved wall. It surrounded him too closely.

_ Back inside. _

_ The Asset must be preserved. _

_ You are the future. _

Heart rate: error.

“Bucky? Bucky!”

System reset.

Manual override.

Reprogram.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't usually update this quickly, and I definitely won't update tomorrow. Expect updates between Thursday and Saturday.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I grew up with the comics, so forgive me as I draw heavily on them for Bucky and Natasha's relationship.

Tony and Bruce were in their own world, fawning over MRI videos and talking to each other emphatically while pointing at the screen. Steve didn’t understand a word of it. For all he knew, they were speaking Russian. Well, probably not Russian. Natasha looked equally confused. She stood next to Steve, watching Tony and Bruce with narrowed eyes. Steve sat hunched over in a chair with his hands clasped together. They were in one of Tony’s labs again, called here to discuss the MRI’s findings—if “discuss” meant Tony and Bruce jabbering together. Steve had tuned them out, his mind ensnared by the memory of pulling Bucky out of the MRI machine and the relief that had followed the sound of his friend’s breaths, shaky though they were. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever felt more miserable than he did now.

“Stop!” Natasha said, not quite yelling but firm nonetheless.

Tony and Bruce quieted and looked back at her.

Her stare could have pierced through steel. “If you would, in plain English, explain what the hell is going on.”

Tony pointed to the screen where the video still played. “Do you see this? This is fucking incredible.” Excitement raised the pitch of his voice slightly.

Bruce had the mind to look apologetic for his enthusiasm. “Based on what we’ve seen here, it appears Barnes is adapting to the tech.”

“Adapting to the tech? Look at that, Bruce! He’s _reformatting his brain._ ”

Bruce glanced at the screen. “Yes, I can see that, Tony.”

Steve’s brows lowered. “What do you mean he’s reformatting his brain?”

Bruce waved his hand over the screen, rewinding to the beginning, and paused at an image with spots of yellow, green, blue, and red scattered on both sides of the brain. “This is what his brain looked like before we began the test. Anxiety levels are unusually high, but it has the same patterns of activity as a normal brain.” He waved his hand over the screen again, fast-forwarding to the end. The colors concentrated more heavily toward the middle and right side of the brain. “This is at the time of seizure.”

Tony was practically vibrating. “Do you see what he’s done?”

Natasha folded her arms over her chest. “It looks like colors to us, Tony. Just tell us what it is.”

“His anxiety levels skyrocketed, and in order to deal with it, his brain _used the tech against itself_.”

When Steve and Natasha still looked confused, Bruce sighed and said, “You need to explain more, Tony.”

Tony rewound a few seconds. The colors shifted to the front of the brain. He played it. The colors moved from the front, concentrated along a few wires toward the middle and sparked in the back and right side of the brain. “We thought this center couldn’t handle emotion. We were wrong. It just doesn’t bother to manage any other emotion than fear. Every time Barnes’ anxiety levels increase, the center sends out an electrical spike to shock the brain—probably to jolt the other centers into resetting, like rebooting a computer. That’s the real reason they’re causing these seizures. It’s programmed into them to do this, and it’s probably how Hydra maintained control over him for so long. These centers reset his brain, so to speak, any time his anxiety gets to be too much.”

“Emotional conditioning,” Natasha said. “They were training him not to feel fear.”

Steve grimaced. “Everyone feels fear.”

She stared at the screen. “Yes, but for Barnes, I doubt it’s in the sense that you think of. Hydra trained him to push the fear aside. It’s there. It never leaves, but it’s also never brought to the forefront.”

“How is that possible? No one can control their emotions like that.”

There was something in the way she stared at the screen that sent chills through Steve. It was as though she were looking at a ghost. “It’s not about controlling emotions. The only way to prevent fear from taking over is to lose your sense of self-preservation—nothing to fear losing then. Barnes is getting these seizures because he cares if he dies. He’s found a reason to live again.”

“You seem very sure of that,” Bruce said, watching her with knowing eyes.

“I know Hydra,” she replied simply.

Tony pointed to the screen. “Getting back to this. Your boyfriend, Steve, is using the wires to offset the impact of the electrical spikes from the main control center to other parts of his brain, preventing the middle center from resetting.”

“He’s protecting his memories,” Natasha mumbled, more to herself than anyone else.

“And rewiring himself to do it.” Tony traced a finger along a length of wire running down the middle of the brain from the front to back. “This is the main connection between all three control centers. Look at how the tissue has grafted to it. His brain has created connections to interrupt the electrical signals here and diffuse them elsewhere, so the middle never even receives the order to reset while the connection to the centers isn’t lost. It’s like he’s made a bunch of back streets to avoid road blocks on the main street. Hell, if he continues to do this, he could make the tech as much a part of his brain as the tissue itself—complete control over it.”

Steve’s head perked up. “So he’s going to be okay?”

“That’s what Tony didn’t mention.” Bruce gestured to the highlighted back portion of Bucky’s brain. “Every time he has a seizure, the parietal and occipital lobes take the brunt of it. If he didn’t have the knockoff form of your serum, he’d probably be dead already. As is, one really bad seizure could render him blind, mute, deaf, or kill him.”

Steve worried his lower lip between his teeth, remembering the question that had instigated the seizure—the question he’d asked. “So what do we do?”

“Make him feel good,” Tony said with a smirk. “His highest potential for creating new connections happened when he was remembering good things like his sister and the Howling Commandos. Those are memories his brain is actively seeking, so when the tech blocks it, the tissues find a way around it to access the memory.”

“That’s why the first person he remembered is you,” Bruce said. “Recognition memory retrieval, like recognizing a familiar face, is easier than memory recall, remembering something that isn’t currently present. You were right there in front of him, a good friend, and his brain made that first connection. Of course, memory storage isn’t a clear-cut thing. Memories are recalled by reproducing the neural pattern that happened when you first went through the event. The tech is designed to interrupt the recall pattern. Barnes has bypassed that interruption in some sense, but it’s still hit-or-miss with memory retrieval. Say he thought of you while Hydra was experimenting on him. Now there’s another memory associated with the brain patterns called ‘Steve,’ and there’s no way of knowing if he’ll remember a childhood memory of you or Hydra digging into his skull.”

Tony glanced at the screen. “Perhaps a better analogy would be that Barnes’ main street has a bunch of roadblocks, and he’s trying to make new back streets through a minefield.”

“The mines being anxiety-filled memories?” Natasha prompted.

Bruce nodded. “Like you said, they put him through emotional conditioning. He’s not equipped to handle anxiety, as in he _physically_ cannot deal with it, and Sam has already diagnosed him with PTSD. If that’s not handled immediately, he doesn’t stand a chance of pulling through this.”

Steve’s jaw clenched as his stomach twisted. He was angry with Hydra for doing this to Bucky, but more than anything, he was afraid. When he’d gotten Bucky back, he’d known he would have to fight for him. But there was nothing he could fight here. No matter how much he wanted to protect Bucky, he couldn’t take up arms against...this. “So what’s next? Therapy? Meds?”

“It might help,” Tony said, “but it would only buy him some more time. The only way to solve the problem is to stop the main control center from giving out the reset order.”

“Can you do that without deactivating it?” Natasha asked.

Bruce looked at the screen and sighed heavily. “That’s what we’re trying to figure out now.”

“You better figure it out soon,” a familiar voice said.

Steve jumped at the voice and looked back to see Maria Hill walk into the lab.

“JARVIS, why did you let her in?” Tony asked.

“She has a key, sir,” JARVIS replied through a speaker in the ceiling.

“Who gave her a key?”

“Information unknown.”

Hill folded her arms over her chest. “The World Security Council is breathing down Fury’s neck about the Winter Soldier.”

“His name is James Buchanan Barnes,” Steve said, voice hard.

She reacted only by arching a brow. “Regardless, they’re against having him in the Tower when no one has provided them with any information about him besides what he’s done with Hydra. Most of them just want him executed, and I can only say ‘patience’ in so many ways until they give out the kill order. We need data. Now.”

Natasha’s eyes narrowed. “That’s not the only reason you’re here.”

A corner of Hill’s lips twitched. “There is one other matter.” She took a flash drive from a pocket of her jacket. “A recent raiding mission into a Hydra warehouse got us this. It’s encrypted, and we haven’t had luck yet with decrypting it. You up for the challenge, Tony?”

“I’m up for anything,” Tony said, almost looking offended. “Just leave it on the desk with my key.”

She set the flash drive on a desk and turned to leave. “See you later.”

“My key,” Tony repeated.

She walked out.

“JARVIS change all the locks in the Tower.”

“They’re fingerprint-recognition locks, sir,” JARVIS said.

Tony scowled. “Then strike her from the permitted entrants.”

“She is not registered in the permitted entrants list.”

“Then how did she get in?”

“She has a key, sir.”

“ _What key?_ ”

“Information unknown.”

Tony made a frustrated groan and shook his head. “I’ll deal with that later. You guys can go now.”

Steve stood. “What about giving data to SHIELD?”

“We’ll think of something,” Bruce said and rubbed his eyes tiredly.

Steve didn’t believe those words when Tony was involved, but before he could accuse him of dragging his feet purposefully, Natasha grabbed Steve’s arm and said, “Okay, we’ll see you both later.” She half-dragged Steve out of the lab and started down the main hall.

“Nat, what are you doing?” Steve asked.

“Tony is invested in helping Barnes. Don’t piss him off now.”

Steve snatched his arm back and stopped walking. Natasha halted. “How can you be sure he’ll follow through?”

She glanced at the lab door. “I overheard him talking with Bruce last night. He’s...unnerved...by the tech. I think he’s been confronting the fact that Barnes’ hasn’t had control over himself for seventy years, and with everything that Loki did...” Her next words were barely above a whisper. “That’s why he’s excited that Barnes’ is getting past the tech. It means Hydra wasn’t able to take complete control over him.”

Steve hadn’t thought of it that way, but Tony was the one who’d been hit the hardest after Loki’s attack on New York because he didn’t know how to deal with things he couldn’t explain. The tech in Bucky’s brain—that, he could explain. “So what am I supposed to do, Nat?” Steve asked. “I can’t just sit around and wait for SHIELD to kill Bucky.”

She jerked her head in a direction down the hall. They headed off. “Clint and I have set up a safe house in Albany. If the Council gives the kill order, Clint will take Barnes there. It’ll be our job to change the Council’s mind at that point.”

“Clint agreed to this?” Steve asked incredulously.

“He owes me a favor—or sixteen.”

Steve shoved a hand through his hair. “I want to talk to Bucky about this.”

“No.” Her tone was firm, leaving no room for argument. “Your job right now is to talk with Sam about the best ways to support someone with PTSD. No offense, Steve, but you’re clueless, and frankly, I’m surprised you didn’t set Bucky off sooner.”

He frowned, a feeling of inadequacy hitting him again. “And what are you going to do now?”

They stopped at the elevator. She hit the button to summon it. “Support someone with PTSD.”

#

“Who are you?” the programmer asks. He stands in front of Bucky’s chair, staring down at him. The lab is dank and cold, nothing but concrete and brights lights and this fucking electric chair.

Bucky glares at the programmer. “James Buchanan Barnes.”

The programmer shakes his head. “No. Again.”

The chair leans back. Bucky struggles in the restraints as the electric panels enclose around his head. Pain blinds him, fills him, burrows into every molecule of his being.

System reset.

The panels leave. The chair comes back up.

“Who are you?” the programmer asks again.

Bucky scowls. “James Buchanan Barnes.”

“Again.”

The panels enclose again.

System reset.

“Who are you!”

Bucky grimaces, trying to think of his name. It comes to him like a whisper. “James Buchanan Barnes.”

“No! Again!”

System reset.

“Who are you?”

Silence. “Nobody.”

#

Bucky woke with a start. Heart rate: 125. Blood pressure: 135/92. Core temperature: 36.7.

“Bad dream?”

He turned his head to look at Natasha Romanoff. She sat by his bed, hands folded over a notebook in her lap. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

She handed him the notebook. A pen was clipped to the spiral binding. “I have a gift for you.”

He took the notebook hesitantly. “Why?”

“I saw the videos of your scan earlier today. This is to help with the fear.” She pointed to the notebook. “Everything you’re afraid to forget, write it down.”

He blinked.

_I shouldn’t be afraid._

_It’s okay to have fear, лапушка. It means you’re alive._

When Bucky blinked again, a different Natasha sat in that chair. She was the same physically, but...different. “I knew you—before you became an Avenger.”

She leaned back in her chair. “That was a long time ago.”

A dull ache started behind his eyes. “We...trained together. I used to...sneak to your room...with vodka. You would talk with me like I wasn’t the Winter Soldier.”

“A title doesn’t make a man.” A small smile played at her lips. “And you were never good at being bad.”

_Ангелочек, I killed a married couple yesterday._

_Are you confessing your sins to me now?_

_I feel...wrong. I think I’m malfunctioning._

_You’re not malfunctioning, лапушка. It’s called guilt._

_But...why?_

_Because you didn’t want to kill them._

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Natasha said, concern knitting her brows together.

He massaged a temple. “I don’t remember much from the Red Room, but I remember you.”

In a strained voice, she muttered, “I watched them put you in that damn cryo tank too many times.”

_Will you still be here when I wake up, ангелочек?_

_Yes._

_Promise?_

_I promise, лапушка._

“You’re a little late on your promise,” he said. “I woke up, and you weren’t there.”

Her brows rose. “You remember that?”

“Vaguely.” A smile touched his lips. “What was it you called me? Лапушка?”

She nodded. “When you first came in, you reminded me of a wounded dog. ‘Лапушка’ seemed fitting.”

“And you were my ангелочек back then.”

“I’ve done nothing angelic.”

_я тебя люблю._

“But you have. You loved me.”

Her eyes lowered. “Not how either of us wanted, James.”

He let out a long breath, the memories shifting through his mind like smoke from a snuffed candle. “No, but I can still be grateful. You seem happy now. No one’s trying to marry you off. You have friends here. And Steve obviously adores you.”

“It’s a good life. I have something worth fighting for now.” She pushed his hair back from his forehead. “I just wish I’d taken you with me all those years ago.”

He took her hand from his hair and held it. “I’m here now, Natashechka.”

A pained smile spread her lips at the endearing form of her name. “So you are.” Her phone beeped. She pulled it from her pocket to check the screen. “I have to go. Write in the notebook.” She kissed his cheeks before leaving the room.

Bucky stared down at the notebook a moment. He took the pen from the binding and opened to the first page. His hand shook as he wrote the first line, but grew steadier the more he wrote.

_Your name is James Buchanan Barnes. You were born March 10, 1917 to George and Winifred Barnes. Your best friend is Steven Grant Rogers who you met ninety years ago..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes on Russian:  
> лапушка (lapushka) - paw  
> aнгелочек (angelochek) - angel  
> These pet names are usually used with children, but can also be playful terms of endearment between lovers and close friends. 
> 
> я тебя люблю (Ya tebya lyublyu) - I love you
> 
> Natashechka (Наташечка) - Similar to turning "Buchanan" into "Bucky," it's not uncommon in Russia for family (especially parent to child), close friends, and lovers to make names endearing by adding -ya, -echka, -ochka, -ishka, -oshka, -ushka, -inka, or -enka. Sometimes names are changed more significantly than adding a suffix, but not always. (Ex: Vasiliy -> Vasya -> Vasochka; Vladimir -> Volodya -> Vladinka; Klavdiya -> Klava -> Klavushka) There's a lot of variations for the name "Natasha," but Natashechka is my favorite. I didn't write it in Cyrillic because it isn't a pet name like лапушка, so much as a nickname, which I'm treating like I would a regular name.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I'm drawing from the comics because I was a huge fan of Hawkeye in the comics, and I'm not such a fan of the movie-version Hawkeye. Forgive me as I reconcile the two.

Bucky wasn’t sure if he was having another seizure or not, but that seemed to be a valid reason for the loud booming that shook his room. He waited for the right side of his body to go numb, or for lights to dance across his vision. But his hand still held the pen steady and only the words in his notebook were in his vision.

Another loud boom preceded shouts. The door to Bucky’s room burst open. A man in black walked in with a bow strapped across his chest and a quiver to his back. Brown hair. Green eyes. Stocky build. Name: Clint Barton. Codename: Hawkeye.

“We don’t have a lot of time,” Clint said and uncuffed Bucky’s metal arm. “Are you okay walking?”

Bucky stood, clutching his notebook to his chest. His legs held him up, albeit unsteadily. “I think so. What’s going on?”

“I’ll explain on the way. We need to get to the roof.” Clint started at a brisk pace for the door. Bucky tried to keep up, but his legs just weren’t working like he wanted.

Clint cursed under his breath and turned back. “Can I touch you?”

“Well, now seems like an odd time, but if you’re gentle—”

“Goddamn it, Barnes. Are you going to let me help you out of here or not?”

Another loud boom came with the sound of glass shattering and gunfire. “No touching my face,” Bucky said. Clint slotted himself under Bucky’s metal arm, and together, they hurried out of the infirmary.

“Why are we under attack?” Bucky asked. “I mean, you guys are always under attack, but something tells me this isn’t for the normal reasons.”

“A bunch of agents from SHIELD decided to go rogue.” Clint glared at Bucky’s forearm draped over his chest as they headed down the main hall. “What is this made out of? Lead?”

“Some other stuff, too.”

“Jesus.” Clint let out a tired breath and turned through an open doorway. It led to a stairwell.

“ _Блядь_ ,” Bucky muttered as they headed up the stairs slowly.

“Apparently, these rogue agents contacted a local Hydra faction, so they’ve worked out some kind of truce to attack us together.”

Bucky grimaced. “Why would SHIELD work with Hydra against their own people?”

Clint glanced sidelong at Bucky. “They’re here to kill you, Barnes.”

Bucky’s brows knit together in confusion. “And you’re not giving me to them because...I’m just too handsome?”

Clint blinked. “You...what? No, we’re not going to just let them kill you. Are you insane?”

“By most definitions, yes.”

Clint sighed in exasperation. “Nat and Steve would raise hell if we gave you up, and Tony already threatened to break my hearing aids if I let Hydra take you.”

Bucky had to take a moment to process that information. “Tony? Tony Stark threatened you? Because of me?”

“He called you the ‘greatest cybernetic mystery of the century.’”

That sounded more like Tony. “So where are you taking me?”

“A safehouse in Albany.”

They came to the top floor. Clint kicked open the door. Natural light burst in. Bucky squinted until his eyes adjusted. A chopper sat on the roof. Gun flashes reflected off the windows of the surrounding buildings.

“So we’re just going to...fly to Albany,” Bucky said as a loud boom resounded again, followed by more gunfire and shouting. “There’s no way this could go wrong.”

“That’s what I said,” Clint muttered and hobbled with Bucky to the chopper. A high-pitched whine gradually grew louder as Clint opened the helicopter door. Bucky tossed his notebook in the back, pulled the gun from Clint’s hip, and squeezed one shot off at the aerial explosive that had just arced from the side of the building. It exploded at its highest point, spraying flaming rocket fuel and shrapnel down on the roof. Bucky managed to use his flesh arm to pull his metal one behind Clint’s head, protecting the archer’s skull and neck. A piece of metal sliced through Clint’s side and through Bucky’s thigh. Another lodged in Bucky’s metal arm. If it hadn’t been there, Clint would have been decapitated.

“How did you—?” Clint started, looking back at the smoking, flaming debris scattered around the roof.

Bucky holstered the gun at Clint’s hip again and let his metal arm drop. “Mini-ballistic missile that Hydra developed in Russia. Makes a high-pitched noise when it’s airborne. You might not have heard it because the frequency is outside your hearing range, even with the aids.”

“Clint!” Natasha’s voice came through the chopper’s radio. “Clint! Answer, damn it!”

Clint climbed into the chopped and grabbed the radio. “We’re good, Nat. Barnes shot the missile mid-air. Just some flesh wounds.”

Her relieved breath turned to static over the radio. “Then get out of here. I’ll meet you at the safehouse.”

“They can follow a helicopter,” Bucky said as he climbed into the co-pilot seat. “It’s too conspicuous.”

Clint put on a headset and handed another to Bucky. “That’s why we’re taking it to the Adirondacks, then driving down to Albany.” He handed Bucky his gun again. “Shoot down more missiles, would you?”

Bucky took the gun with a nod. Clint started up the chopper and took off. Bucky stared down at the carnage below. Bruce, in full Hulk form, was punching through walls of soldiers. Natasha had situated herself atop a building with a sniper rifle. Tony zoomed through the streets, picking off soldiers to thin out the waves. And Steve plunged headlong into a group, sending most flying.

“Nat,” Bucky said over the radio, “I need you to do something for me.”

“Aside from what I’m already doing?” she asked, voice crackling through his headset.

“I need you to hit Steve in the head really hard. What does he think he’s doing running into the middle of ten guys?”

“You know, this channel is open for everyone,” Steve muttered.

“Steve,” Natasha said, “I’m going to hit you really hard in the head when we’re done with this.”

“There’s a plan we can get behind,” Tony commented.

The Hulk growled loudly. Bucky assumed it was in agreement.

“Anyone know where Thor and Sam are?” Steve asked.

A red streak flew across the sky, followed by a thunderous boom and lightning that struck a group of Hydra troops.

“Right on time,” Clint said.

A flash of black wings, and Sam hovered beside Bucky. He looked Bucky and Clint over and tossed a first aid pack inside the chopper. Bucky saluted Sam, which the Falcon returned before diving into the fray. The Avengers all fought well together—like a team should. Bucky stared down at them, watching them assist each other in hits and looking out for each other.

“I don’t like leaving either,” Clint mumbled, “but they’ll be okay. They know what they’re doing.”

Bucky kept his eyes on Steve until his friend disappeared on the horizon.

#

Hydra called the retreat within the hour. Over twenty soldiers had been captured, most of them SHIELD. Thirty more had been killed. Agent Hill had showed up soon after the retreat to round up all those captured and haul them to wherever—probably some horrible, underground pit. And then Tony had proposed lunch in the Tower’s common room.

Steve sat with a cup of coffee and a turkey sandwich on one of the couches. A crisp wind blew through his hair from the massive hole in one wall. Natasha nibbled on a bagel. Thor was eating ribs. Sam had satisfied himself with a cup of coffee. Bruce was curled up beside Natasha in a blanket. And Tony was mechanically eating oatmeal.

“I don’t like oatmeal,” Tony muttered after a long minute of silence.

“Then why are you eating it?” Sam asked.

Tony stared at the oatmeal like it was one of the specimens in his lab. “I don’t know.”

Thor set his hammer on the coffee table beside his plate of ribs. “You are disoriented, Tony. Too much stress. Have you been taking proper care of your body? It is important that a warrior always have a mind as sharp as his blade.”

Tony shrugged. “I was up all night trying to decrypt the Hydra files. It seems to have a mind of its own. Every time I figure out one key, there’s another. And once I figure that one out, the other key changes.”

“No one here knows what that means, Tony,” Bruce said.

“It means that the code changes itself every time you try to solve it, like a puzzle where all the pieces change every time you fit two together.”

“That sounds...frustrating,” Thor said. “I have never cared for puzzles.”

Steve swallowed a bite of his sandwich. “Sounds like Bucky’s brain.”

Tony arched a brow. “How so?”

“Well, the encryption changes to get around the key. Bucky’s brain changes to get around the tech.”

Tony blinked, then his eyes widened. He jumped to his feet. “JARVIS, notify me the moment Barnes’ gets to the safehouse.”

“Of course, sir,” the computer system replied.

Natasha’s eyes followed Tony to the elevator. “What do you need Barnes’ for?”

“His brain” was all Tony said before getting on the elevator.

“I should have kept my mouth shut,” Steve muttered. “He better not experiment on Bucky.”

“He won’t,” Bruce said, eyes fluttering closed, as if they were too heavy to keep open. “If he could, he’d get the tech out of Barnes’ brain.”

Sam and Steve exchanged a glance. “Something you’re not saying, Bruce?” Sam prompted.

Bruce’s breathing slowed. “Blames the tech for his parents’ death. Wants to stop it no matter what.”

Thor hummed thoughtfully. “Perhaps I can help. There are healers in Asgard who might be able to remove this ‘tech’ you speak of.”

“Can’t,” Bruce mumbled, slurring the word.

Natasha bumped him with her elbow. “Why? Don’t fall asleep yet, Bruce.”

He yawned. “Part of his...brain now. Takes on...neural function. Can’t...work...without it.”

Steve’s blood ran cold. “What? Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”

“Tony figured it out...last night.” Bruce yawned again. “Like Tony’s...heart generator. Gotta...replace tissue...if tech goes. Cut out...real tissue...to make room...for tech.”

“You can’t do a brain transplant,” Natasha said. “That’s impossible.”

Bruce nodded slightly. “Yes. Tech...stays.”

Steve grimaced. “But that means if Hydra ever captures him, they could wipe him again. Just like that.”

Bruce nodded again.

Steve opened his mouth to say more, but Natasha held up a hand. “He needs rest, Steve,” she said. “We can discuss this more later. In the meantime, why don’t you and Sam do a patrol?”

“Why would we do a patrol? JARVIS has cameras ev—”

Sam stood. “Let’s go, Steve.”

Steve glanced between Natasha and Sam suspiciously. Neither offered a hint into what they were thinking. He reluctantly stood and followed Sam out of the hole in the wall.

“That is not a door!” Tony said over the intercom.

Sam shrugged and walked with Steve through the grass surrounding the Tower. They were quiet for a minute, the sound of the grass shifting beneath their feet the only sound.

“Nat’s concerned about you and Barnes,” Sam said finally, “and I don’t think her concern’s unfounded.”

Steve ran a hand through his hair. “I won’t disagree. I’ve seen battle fatigue before, Sam, but with Bucky… He’s not afraid of war. Never has been. He’s afraid of something he can’t even see. How can I help with that?”

“You listen. He’ll tell you everything you need to know.”

Steve didn’t know what to do with that answer, so he just stayed silent.

Sam sighed. “There’s no easy way to deal with PTSD, Steve, but the first thing you’re going to have to do is talk with him. Really talk with him. That means finding out what he’s comfortable with and what he’s uncomfortable with. It means being patient, no matter what he does or says.”

“What if I don’t agree with him? Today happened because of what’s in his head.” Steve stared down at the grass. “He’s probably blaming himself right now. He’s probably blaming himself for everything Hydra made him do. None of this is his fault, but he’s going to blame himself anyway.”

“You don’t have to agree with him to get where he’s coming from. Right now, his reality is that he’s a murderer, and he has to discover for himself how he’s going to deal with that. You can’t change his mind. All you can do is make sure that he knows, no matter who or what he is now, you’re there for him.”

Steve’s feet stopped. Sam halted as well. “I think I’m in over my head,” Steve mumbled, looking around at the smoking debris and the scorch marks on the Tower. “I understand this. I understand war. But Bucky… Weapons aren’t going to help him..”

“It’s just a different kind of war.” Sam pointed to Steve’s chest. “It’s this—” he pointed to Steve’s head— “against this. His weapons are friends.” Sam clasped Steve’s shoulder. “Right now, he’s his own worst enemy. He could use a good shield, and I hear yours is the finest around.”

Steve offered a small smile. “Thanks, Sam.” He let out a long breath. “Do you have books on PTSD I could look at?”

“Yeah, of course.”

Steve took his phone from his pocket to check the time. Clint and Bucky had flown out of radio range half an hour ago. They’d touch down in the Adirondacks soon, and then he could talk with Bucky. He just hoped Bucky would want to talk with him.

#

“You’re not going to handcuff me?” Bucky asked when he and Clint climbed out of the chopper.

Clint shrugged. “If you didn’t kill me on the way over here, chances are you’re not going to do it now.” He took Bucky’s notebook from the back and handed it over. “Besides, you saved my life. It’d be kinda stupid to kill a guy after saving him.”

“Maybe I don’t know how to fly a helicopter, and I was just using you.”

“And maybe you can take me down without that metal arm of yours.” Clint smirked. “Let’s go, Tin Man.”

“Tin Man?”

“Would you prefer ‘Borg’?”

Bucky frowned. “I assume that’s short for ‘cyborg.’”

Clint’s jaw dropped. “The Borg. You know, _Star Trek_?”

Bucky’s brows furrowed. “What is _Star Trek_?”

“Oh, you’re killing me.”

“Not yet.”

Clint shook his head. “When we get to the safehouse, we’re watching _Star Trek_.” He headed off.

Bucky looked around at where they’d landed. It was some kind of clearing in the middle of the woods, which was somewhere in the Adirondacks. Clint disappeared past the treeline, and Bucky followed. Only a few steps in, and Clint’s phone rang a low, droning pitch. He answered immediately. “We just touched down.” Pause. “No issues. We’re heading off soon.” Pause. “Oh, yeah, sure.” He turned to Bucky and held out the phone. “Steve wants to talk to you.”

Bucky traded Clint the phone for the notebook, as he only had use of his real arm still. “Everything all right on your end, Steve?”

“Yeah, we’re good,” Steve said, but he sounded tired.

“Don’t lie to me, Steve. You’re shit at it.”

Steve chuckled humorlessly. “Tower took some damage. We’ve got a couple scrapes and bruises, but honestly, we’re going to be fine. Hill is cracking down on her agents, seeing if any others are thinking about going rogue. She’s handling all of the logistics.” He paused.

Bucky instinctually knew Steve had more to say, but wasn’t saying it. “If you brood any louder, Steve, Clint might actually hear you.”

Clint stuck up his middle finger at that, making Bucky chuckle.

“Sam, uh… Sam said I should talk with you...about everything.”

“Everything?” Bucky arched a brow. “That’s quite a range of topics.”

“I’m trying to be serious here, Buck.” Steve sighed. “Look, we don’t have to talk now. You should focus on getting to the safehouse all right, but I want to have an actual conversation with you because I don’t get it, Buck. I don’t get what you’re going through. But I want to.”

Bucky didn’t respond for a long moment, and when he did speak, his voice came out a strained rasp, “What if you don’t like what I have to say?”

“You’re my best friend, Buck. I’ll love you anyway.”

Heart rate: 98.

The trees ended at a road. A black SUV sat in a turnout. Clint pulled keys from his pocket, and the car’s lights flashed. “We...uh...have to go,” Bucky said. “I’ll talk to you later, Steve.”

“Okay. Call me when you’re at the safehouse.”

“Wilco.” Bucky hung up and traded the phone back to Clint for his notebook.

“How long have you and Steve known each other?” Clint asked as they climbed into the car.

“Over ninety years now, I guess. There’s a big gap of time in the middle there, though, where we both thought the other was dead.”

Clint pulled onto the road, heading south. “Still, you guys talk like no time has passed at all.”

Bucky opened his notebook, took the pen from the binding, and turned to the second to last page. “For us, not much time has passed really. We’ve slept years away.”

“Fair enough.” Clint glanced at the notebook. “What are you writing?”

“Everything I can remember...in case I forget again.”

“Smart. I can get you more notebooks on the way.”

“That’s really not—”

“Consider it repayment for saving my life.” Clint pointed to the metal shard still lodged in Bucky’s mechanical arm. “Also that. I’ll get Tony to fix your arm as soon as possible.”

Bucky glanced at the arm in question. “Get me some tools, and I can get it working again—a little at least.”

“What kind of tools you need?”

Bucky shrugged. “Basic stuff. Wire stripper, Philips screwdrivers, slip joint and needle nose pliers, and duct tape.”

“Duct tape?”

“Duct tape solves everything.”

Clint smiled. “Well, we should have all of those either in the back or at the safehouse.”

Bucky glanced at the archer. “You’re not wary of me like the others.”

“Should I be?”

“Probably.”

Clint shrugged again. “I think anyone who earns Nat’s and Steve’s respect is all right. Doesn’t hurt that you saved me either.”

“What if I’m just infiltrating the Avengers, getting you all to trust me, so I can report everything back to Hydra?”

“What if I’m just infiltrating the Avengers, getting them all to trust me, so I can report everything back to Hydra?” Clint repeated. “You’re not the only one here who has a history with Hydra. Years ago, I helped Nat steal intel from Stark Industries while she was still working for the Soviets. Nearly got both of us killed. She left Hydra soon after, and I… Well, I was never officially part of them, but I helped them. That’s something I have to live with. It’s something you and Nat have to live with, too.”

Bucky didn’t know how to reply to that, so he remained silent.

“People change, Barnes, and it’s never too late to start shooting straight.”

Bucky smiled at that. “Archer puns now?”

Clint chuckled. “The idiom still applies.”

“I’ll consider it.” Bucky looked down at his notebook and scribbled on an open line, _Clint Barton is okay._


	5. Chapter 5

Pepper was furious. Steve had never seen her so angry before, and he made a mental note never to piss her off.

“Anthony Edward Stark!” she yelled from the common area. “Get your ass down here!”

Steve stood with Sam and Thor off to the side. Pepper had come back from a summit in Italy, only to find the Tower filled with holes and SHIELD agents everywhere. But that hadn’t even been the main reason for her anger. It wasn’t until Sam had mentioned that Tony had not only been severely sleep-deprived, but fought while severely sleep-deprived that she’d snapped.

“I’m almost done with—” Tony started over the intercom.

“Now!” An orange glow burned below Pepper’s skin and put fire in her eyes.

Thor leaned toward Steve. “She seems to be...aflame.”

Steve nodded. “That she is.”

“You think maybe we should go?” Sam asked.

The elevator doors opened, and Tony walked out.

“Too late now,” Steve muttered.

“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” Pepper asked. “What the hell were you thinking fighting Hydra like this?”

Tony looked everywhere else but Pepper. “I took some stims before—”

“Oh, you took some stims? Right, so that makes everything better. Instead of actually sleeping, you’ll just take drugs until you’re passed out on your lab floor again?”

He sighed. “Pepper, I’m sorry, but SHIELD needs me to get info on Barnes and to decrypt Hydra files. I had to work.”

“SHIELD didn’t ask you to be an idiot. You want to talk work? You need to be healthy to help people, otherwise you’re a liability. Jesus, Tony. If you’re not going to take care of yourself for you, do it for the people who are depending on you. Your life is not the only one at stake here. If you’re too sleep-deprived to do your job, people die. And that will be on you.”

He didn’t have a response to that, staring at the floor.

She shook her head and let out a long breath. The glow beneath her skin dimmed. “Get upstairs. You’re going to sleep a full eight hours.”

“But I have—”

“So help me, I will knock you out myself.” She dragged him by his arm to the elevator.

Sam rubbed the back of his neck. “Is it weird that I envy Tony?”

Steve gave his friend an odd look, but Thor nodded in understanding.

“It is good to have someone who cares so deeply about you,” the Asgardian said. “Makes me miss my Jane all the more.”

For whatever reason, Steve thought of Bucky. Bucky who’d always been there to defend him when he didn’t know how to back down from a fight. Bucky who’d made him soup when he was sick. Bucky who’d held him when his mother died.

“Steve, where are you going?” Sam asked.

Steve headed for the stairwell on the other side of the room. “Nat should be at the safehouse now. I’m going to check if Clint and Bucky made it, too.” He went up to the second floor and down the main hall to the comm room. It was nothing more than a white room filled with screens and a control console in the center. Steve was about to dial in the safehouse number when _Agent Hill_ flashed across the largest screen. He sighed and hit the green button on the console. Hill’s face appeared.

“Glad I could catch you,” she greeted flatly.

Steve crossed his arms over his chest. “How is that you always know when someone is in the comm room?”

She ignored the question. “I have some news.”

“Bad news, I take it.”

Her face remained composed. “In light of recent events, the Council has ordered the Winter Soldier’s immediate termination. He is a danger to the integrity of—”

“Bullshit. He saved Clint during the attack. Tony and Bruce have lost hours of sleep figuring out what’s in Bucky’s head. And the only reason you treat this research differently from any other vital Hydra technology is that there’s a body to go along with it. So you can cram it up your ass, Hill. No one’s laying a finger on Bucky.”

She glowered at Steve a long moment. “You have twenty-four hours to hand him over before Director Fury takes down the Tower.”

Steve hit the console’s red button. The picture shut off. His hands clenched into fists, and the urge to hit something was a sore temptation. Instead of breaking Tony’s expensive room, however, he hit the intercom button, and said, “If everyone could come to the comm room. I have news.”

Almost all the Avengers were in the room within two minutes. Even Bruce, Tony, and Pepper came. The only ones missing were Natasha and Clint who were in Albany. Everyone listened quietly while Steve explained what Hill had said.

“Well...shit,” Bruce muttered.

“I think it’s best that I take Bucky and run,” Steve said. “None of you should have to suffer anymore for this. I should just go rogue officially and be done with it.”

Sam grimaced. "Probably no point in arguing with you, so I’m coming with. No way I’m going to let you go running around alone with SHIELD on your heels.”

Bruce nodded his agreement. “And you should take me with you to keep check on Barnes’ brain.”

“You have my support as well,” Thor said.

When Steve opened his mouth to refuse their help, Tony said, “I’m not backing down yet. Don’t get me wrong, though. I don’t care about Barnes, but what Hydra did to him is what killed my parents. It’s too dangerous to be left alone. I’m not walking away from that.”

Pepper let out a tired breath. “Well, if Tony’s going to be a part of this, you have my political backing as well. Stark Industries will do what it can for you.”

Steve stared at his team. He’d thought to go rogue to spare them from fighting SHIELD, but if they were all on board with putting up a fight, he had no reason to follow through with his original plan. “So what now? SHIELD’s not just going to let this go because we’re in this together. This is us against the government...multiple governments, actually.”

“We have twenty-four hours to figure out what to do,” Tony pointed out.

Pepper shot him a pointed look. “And you’re going to spend eight of them asleep.”

Sam stared at the floor pensively. “What we need is more time to convince SHIELD that Bucky’s more valuable than they originally thought.”

“How are we going to get more time?” Steve asked.

Bruce frowned. “I hate to say it, but they have to think Barnes is dead.”

“What are you thinking, Bruce?” Tony asked.

“Well, all they care about is that Bucky is no longer a threat. The only way to make them think that is if they think he’s dead. It won’t be enough to convince just SHIELD, though. We have to fool Hydra as well.” Bruce paused in thought. “We have to stage his death...publicly.”

Thor looked at Bruce curiously. “How would we do that?”

“Like Tony said,” Sam replied, “we have twenty-four hours to figure that out.”

Steve rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ll let Nat, Clint, and Buck know what’s going on. They might have some ideas.”

“I will also consult my Jane and her team,” Thor offered. “They are skilled in solving problems. Perhaps they may even assist with this ‘tech,’ plaguing your brother-in-arms.”

Steve managed a smile. “Thanks, Thor.”

“My pleasure.”

Pepper pushed Tony out of the room. “And now you’re going to sleep.”

The rest of the Avengers filed out until Steve was left alone in the comm room again. He stared at the console for a long moment, trying to think of ways to deliver the news. When no ideas came, he took a breath and dialed.

#

“Okay, and slowly connect it to the red— Черт возьми!” Bucky glanced down at Clint who had a pair of pliers in his metal arm. “That would be the sensory net.”

Clint grimaced at the mess of wires, pistons, gears, and belts in Bucky’s arm. “So you can feel everything I’m doing?”

“Kind of. The sensors aren’t fully functional.” A dull tingle ran through Bucky's arm. “If you poke the central sensory system with electrically charged wires, however, I will definitely feel that.”

Clint focused on the work inside Bucky’s arm again. “Sorry. Red wire, right?”

“Yes.” Before Clint continued, Bucky added, “Slowly.”

While Clint worked, Bucky distracted himself with analyses of the safehouse. As it turned out, the place was nothing more than a well-fortified basement beneath a Russian restaurant, which Clint had said was owned by Natasha. There was only one bed and a fold-out couch that Bucky and Clint had occupied after arriving to fix the mechanical arm. A TV screen was embedded into the wall opposite the couch, and a doorway off to the side led to a kitchen. Natasha had arrived shortly after Clint and Bucky, but then promptly went into the kitchen to make phone calls. Her voice drifted through the room, words low and indistinct.

Clint managed to attach the correct wires, tape them together, and reset the primary control system by tapping the generator with the pliers. He closed the access panel after he was done, and that backmost control center in Bucky’s brain fed him information while he flexed his hand experimentally.

Connection established.

Running diagnostics...

Motor control: 63%

Sensory functionality: 48%

Strength: 39%

“Everything all right?” Clint asked.

Bucky lifted his arm over his head, testing the shoulder joint. There was some grinding, but not enough to be concerning. “I won’t be fighting with it any time soon, but it works.”

“How was it disabled in the first place?”

Bucky bent his elbow. The gears and belts whirred with a stutter. Something had to be replaced. “Hill cut the primary electrical feed, which you just reconnected. The problem now is wear on the hardware. I need new parts.”

“Tony can probably help with that.”

Natasha walked out of the kitchen, typing something into her phone. “We’re in the clear. No Hydra or SHIELD in the area.”

Bucky moved his wrist. It made a clicking sound and wouldn’t flex all the way back. “I can’t hide here forever.”

“It won’t be forever.”

The TV screen suddenly brightened to a blue screen with _Tower Comm_ written in white across it. “Answer,” Natasha said. The screen shifted to show Steve’s face. Bucky stood.

“Hey,” Steve said with a strained smile. “You look all right.”

Bucky counted two bruises on Steve’s cheek and neck, as well as a split lip. “That makes one of us. Losing your touch, old man?”

Steve arched a brow. “You’re older than me.”

“And still prettier.”

Clint chuckled. Natasha’s lips twitched, as if she were resisting smiling. Steve smiled, but it disappeared almost immediately, replaced by a tired sigh.

“I know that sigh,” Bucky said. “What happened?”

“Hill called earlier.” Steve shoved a hand through his hair. “The Council isn’t happy about the attack on the Tower. They’ve issued your kill order.”

Bucky wasn’t surprised in the least, but looking at Steve, he knew there was something else left unsaid. “Either you left the stove on, or something more is bugging you. And you can’t cook worth shit, so I’m guessing it’s the latter.”

Steve averted his gaze. “The rest of the Avengers are on board with defending you, but in order to avoid all-out war, we need to publicly stage your death.”

Bucky’s brows climbed up his forehead. “And how are we going to do that?”

“We’re still working on a plan.”

Natasha didn’t show her emotions on her face, but almost instinctually, Bucky knew she was pissed off. “How long do we have to make this plan?” she asked.

“Less than twenty-four hours.”

Clint grimaced. “And then what?”

“And then SHIELD will try to take down the Tower.”

“Блядь,” Natasha muttered. “This is ridiculous.”

Bucky’s jaw clenched. “Just let me be on my own. This is insane.”

Steve scowled. “Bucky, they’ll kill you if they catch you.”

“I’m not going to be responsible for all of you getting hurt. This has already gone far enough.” Bucky’s hands clenched into fists at his side. “You think I don’t know that I can’t be fixed? What Hydra did is irreversible. I surrendered because I thought that at least what’s in my head should be used for good. I never asked for this. I never asked for you or anyone else to lay down their life for me. It’s all futile anyway. If the seizures don’t kill me, it’ll be Hydra or SHIELD.” _Or myself._

Steve was silent, an expression on his face that Bucky had never seen before. Every muscle in his neck and face was tense. His brows were drawn low, and he stared at Bucky with eyes like blue fire.

Natasha came up behind Clint and pulled him from the couch. They wordlessly left the basement. Steve waited until the click of the door shutting behind them sounded through the room.

“Is that really what you think?” he asked, voice cold and hard. “You think you can’t be helped?”

Bucky folded his arms over his chest, meeting Steve’s glare with his own. “There’s nothing to help, Steve. This is who I am now. The tech isn’t leaving, and tomorrow I could wake up not knowing anything again. There is no future for me.”

“You don’t know that. Tony and Bruce—”

“Are just delaying the inevitable. They can’t fix me.” Bucky narrowed his eyes. “And I think you know that.”

Steve’s lips thinned to a line. He didn’t reply for a long moment, searching Bucky’s eyes. “I’m not giving up on you, and no one else is either.”

Bucky scoffed and shook his head. “You know, you always do this. You plunge headlong into everything without a second thought to the consequences.”

“So what should I do, Bucky? Just let them kill you?”

“Yes.”

Steve gripped the comm console, hunching over it, and let out a slow breath. The muscles of his shoulders were taut as he stared at the floor. He didn’t speak, and every second of silence weighed on Bucky like a physical weight.

“Steve?” Bucky said hesitantly, guilt tangling in his gut.

“I’m not good at this,” Steve mumbled, voice low and strained. “Every time I think of you dying, it’s like reliving that moment I watched you fall from the train. And then I can’t breathe.” He lifted his eyes to Bucky’s. “Ever since we were kids, I thought that…” He trailed off and let out a shaky breath. “This is selfish of me, but please, Bucky—please let us protect you. Just for a little longer.”

Bucky wanted to refuse. It was on the tip of his tongue, but Steve looked so miserable. There were worse reasons to choose life. “Okay, I’ll stay, but the minute any of you get hurt, I’m gone. And don’t you dare come after me.”

Steve nodded reluctantly. “Fine.”

An awkward silence stretched between them. “So...nice weather we’re having.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Buck,” Steve grumbled, but the faintest of smiles played at his lips. All the tension drained between them.

“What?” Bucky asked with feigned innocence. “I’m just saying the weather’s nice.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Okay. New topic. How’s the safehouse? I’ve never been there before.”

Bucky shrugged. “It’s about the same as a studio apartment. Nat owns the restaurant above it. She says she’ll head back to the Tower later. She just wanted to make sure everything was in order.”

“And you’re good with Clint staying with you?”

“Yeah, he’s good about boundaries. He even helped me fix my arm.”

Steve rubbed his forearm—a nervous habit of his. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about that, actually.”

Bucky’s brows furrowed. “About fixing my arm?”

“No. Boundaries.” Steve rubbed his forearm again. “I just assumed that you’d be okay with how we used to be, but I know now that that may not be true. So what I guess I’m asking is if there’s anything you’re not comfortable with that I’ve done or might do.”

It should have been illegal for someone to look so cute while nervous. Heart rate: 83. Bucky cleared his throat. “Well, I doubt I could handle anyone other than you hugging me. Just ask me beforehand.”

“Okay. Any other things about touching or off-limit topics?”

Bucky took a moment to think about his answer. “I’m fine with touching when it’s you, just not my face. As for off-limit topics, the only one I can think of is what Hydra did to me, but I’ll let you know if any others come up.”

“Great. Thanks.”

Another awkward silence.

Bucky sighed. “Okay, what in the world are you thinking, Steve? You’re making this weirder than it has to be.”

“Sorry, I just…” Steve rubbed the back of his neck, averting his gaze. “I’m worried I’ll mess this up. In a lot of ways, it’s like nothing has changed with us, but also, everything has. I don’t know what to think. Neither of us is the same as we were seventy years ago.”

Bucky agreed that things would never be the same between them again, but that had been inevitable from the day they’d met. People changed—perhaps not under the same circumstances. This would be an effort in getting to know each other all over again. Still, at his core, Steve was Steve. He was still that little guy from Brooklyn picking fights he couldn’t win. And Bucky had somehow ended up here, still telling that fearless little guy to pick his battles.

“It doesn’t have to be the same, Steve,” Bucky said. “We can work it out at our own pace.”

“I don’t know how you make things so simple.” Steve offered a sad smile. “That hasn’t changed.”

“You just think too much. That hasn’t changed either.”

There was a knock at the door, and Clint poked his head in. “Sorry to interrupt, but Nat wanted me to tell you that dinner is ready.”

“I’ll be right there,” Bucky said.

Clint closed the door.

“I’ll keep you updated on the plans,” Steve said, “and if you or Nat or Clint come up with anything, let us know.”

Bucky nodded. “All right, but Steve…”

“Yes?”

“Don’t do anything stupid.”

Steve smiled one of those smiles that reminded Bucky of the sun. “I’ll leave the stupidity with you.”

Bucky shook his head with a smile. “Punk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes on Russian:  
> It's occurred to me that I forgot to give you all the translations of the Russian swear words, so here you are. Sin to your heart's content.
> 
> Черт возьми (chyort voz'mi) - Damn it!  
> Блядь (blyat) - Shit!/Fuck! (Has about the same versatility as the English "fuck," but you'll probably hear it most often at the end of sentences, preceded by сука.)  
> долбоёб (dolboyob) - Dumbass  
> сука (suka) - Bitch
> 
> More to come, I'm sure.


End file.
